![\"Tom](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/1794273128_39_f2045d51-727e-451e-b547-f5dfa705624f_1616339261.jpg\")
<\/a>HARRISBURG, Pa. \u2014<\/p>\nPennsylvania House lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Monday for the first time since an election in which Democrats secured control of the governor\u2019s office and both chambers of the Legislature.<\/p>\n
Incoming House Democrats attended orientation as two Republican lawmakers from the Susquehanna Valley delivered farewell speeches: one retiring and the other preparing to move to the state Senate.<\/p>\n
Republicans bid farewell to the House <\/p>\n
Senator-elect Tom Jones, a Lancaster County Republican, said goodbye to his House colleagues with a speech that included what he described as one of his “bad jokes.”<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t wear progressive lenses because I\u2019m a conservative. I just wear readers,\u201d Jones said, before thanking colleagues and family for supporting him during his time in the House.<\/p>\n
Jones will join a Senate Republican caucus that will soon be in the minority. He said his experience working across party lines will help him in his new role.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve, you know, really worked hard to be effective for the people, not only of Lancaster County, people of Pennsylvania,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI\u2019ve worked across the aisle to get legislation to the governor\u2019s desk and signed into law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republican Rep. Sheryl Delozier is retiring after 18 years representing much of Cumberland County\u2019s West Shore in the House.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of the fact that I have over 20 bills signed into law by Republican and Democratic governors,\u201d Delozier said. \u201cIt\u2019s something that was important to me. We can\u2019t get things done in the far right, in the far left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Incoming Democrats attend orientation <\/p>\n
Her successor, Democrat Sara Agerton of Mechanicsburg, attended orientation on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to look and listen, and we are going to make sure that we are listening to the voters and we\u2019re going to do things differently,\u201d Agerton said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to listen, and we are going to make good things happen for Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrat Brad Chambers also was at the Capitol, days after declaring a narrow victory over Republican incumbent Brett Miller.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am going to be a representative of Republicans, independents and Democrats,\u201d Chambers said. \u201cAnd my philosophy is, I think when you lift up the least of us, you make the quality of life for everyone that much better.\u201d<\/p>\n
House lawmakers are expected to vote for leadership on Tuesday before adjourning sine die, a Latin term meaning \u201cwithout a day\u201d that signifies the end of the legislative session. The Senate is expected to take similar steps the following week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania House lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Monday for the first time since an election in which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[130807,130808,16473,42471,3193,3680,2258,131424,5848,4531,130455,37,67240,48515,131423,15338,3685,100095,7100,7233,113597,28,30,9116,29,5019,130193,130195,131422,13987,70777,42792],"class_list":["post-324551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-brad-chambers","tag-brett-miller","tag-capitol","tag-chamber","tag-control","tag-cumberland-county","tag-democrats","tag-farewell-speech","tag-first-time","tag-governor","tag-governors-office","tag-harrisburg","tag-house-lawmaker","tag-house-lawmakers","tag-incoming-house-democrats","tag-jones","tag-lancaster-county","tag-lancaster-county-republican","tag-legislature","tag-mechanicsburg","tag-orientation","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-house","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-republicans","tag-sara-agerton","tag-sheryl-delozier","tag-sine-die","tag-thing","tag-tom-jones","tag-west-shore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}